Newcore Gold: 2023 Year in Review & 2024 Preview

0:08 Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Most of you likely already know me. My name is Mel Kadwowska. I'm the VP of Corporate Development and IR for Nucor Gold. I'm joined today by Luke Alexander, President and CEO, as well as Greg Smith, our VP of Exploration. Before we get started, I do wanna highlight that we are going to be making some forward-looking statements today. I encourage you all to visit our website where you can find the full cautionary language. We look forward to taking the opportunity today to provide you with an overview of the significant developments that we have made to continue to de-risk and advance our Enshi Gold Project in Ghana throughout 2023. This year was a busy year. It kicked off with a mineral resource estimate update that de-risked Enchi with an inaugural indicated resource, while also continuing to highlight the significant longer-term exploration potential, as we added an additional resource area at Tokosea, and we also proved out the first high-grade underground resources at Enchi.

1:09 We also completed a significant amount of metallurgical test work, which continues to highlight the amenability of our project to heap leach processing. Lastly, we did kick off the process of updating our PEA economics, and we expect to have those results out in the first half of 2024. So with that, we're gonna kick off the presentation, after which we look forward to answering your questions. So please do make sure to submit those questions in the chat. And with that, I'm going to pass it off to Luke to kick things off.

1:38 Yeah, thanks a lot, Mal, and thanks everyone for joining us today. So Nucor Gold, as a recap, we're advancing the Enchi project in Ghana. It's a district scale exploration project that's fundamentally underpinned by very robust economics that were put out in a 2021 PEA. All of our ounces are pit constrained. We are in the process of updating our PEA on the back of the resource that we put out earlier this year, which ultimately outlined a larger overall resource. Right now is a great time to be looking at Nucor. We've sold off with the rest of the market on the back of task lock selling, and we're trading at about $8 per ounce in the ground and less than 0.1 times the NPV of the project.

2:28 Management owns 20% of the company. We've participated in the most recent financing and all financings that have been done since I joined the company. So we're ultimately putting our money where our mouths are. The project again is based in Ghana. It's a great jurisdiction, tier 1 jurisdiction to be operating in. You've got 3 of the top 10 largest gold producers there who continue to put significant capital into the country. Mal touched on it, but in 2023, we did achieve a number of milestones. We put out our mineral resource update, which we'll talk about in some detail. We did complete a financing in July of, or at the end of June of this year which grew our institutional ownership to 45%.

3:24 We brought on additional deep-pocketed long-term investors who recognize the tremendous fundamental value that we've got within our company as well as obviously that district scale exploration upside. As I mentioned, management own 20%. I think this is crucial for any company to make sure that there's that true alignment in the company. If you're buying NuCore today, you're buying it at a discount to where the entire management team and board have invested. So we are truly aligned from that perspective. Greg will talk a little bit more about some of the results that we've had with the deeper drilling on our project.

4:10 We put out some results in August of this year, which highlighted that high-grade potential on our project, as well as I'll talk about the first underground resource that we put out on the project. We've continued to de-risk the project with metallurgical test work, which we'll talk about in some detail and again one of the big catalysts for us in the next 6 months will be the updating of the PEA to incorporate that larger resource that we put out. In terms of the capital structure, very good capital structure. We've currently got 170 million shares outstanding. Crucially, we've got in this environment $5 million in the bank. So everything that we're going to be talking about today is fully funded. So we've got runway for the next 12 to 18 months. So the PEA that we're gonna be completing, the environmental social baseline studies, the additional network that we're gonna be completing and the continued exploration work that we do on the project. All of that is fully funded and should be good catalysts for the company going forward. As I mentioned, we are sitting at 45% institutional ownership.

5:33 These are deep pocketed long-term investors who recognize the district scale potential of our project, but are also keen to see us put it into production given the tremendous economics that it presents. We do have decent volume in the stock, about 150,000 shares per day. This can be a benefit, but in a tax loss selling environment, it can also be a bit of a detriment. So I think, you know, because of the good volume that we have for a junior stock, we've been sold off a little more than other companies out there. And as a result, I think we will also rally quicker as we get through the end of the tax loss selling and towards the last week or 2 of the year. So again, great opportunity to be looking at Nucor today.

6:29 As we've mentioned, we did put out an updated resource earlier this year and we accomplished a number of key things with this. So we moved 740,000 ounces into the indicated category. This is the first time ever that we've had indicated ounces on our project, as well as we added an additional 970,000 ounces of inferred. So we grew the overall size of the resource from the previous resource that we put out. The grade currently sits at 0.55 grams per ton. That grade is driven by the economics of the PEA that we put out, which outlined a very simple heap leach projects. When we look at heap leach projects globally, you're typically looking at more like 0.3 to 0.4 grams per ton. So one of the things when we get into talking about the PEA in more detail is remember the grade is one of the key things that helps drive those economics.

7:36 Within the updated resource that we put out, we also put out our first ever underground resource at 135,000 ounces. It's not a mine today, but those ounces are spread across 3 different deposits and they're really a proof of concept for us, which Greg will get to in a little bit more detail, which highlights the potential there is at depth on this project. We also added a fifth resource area at Tokasea. So again, this highlights the growth potential. We've identified about 25 targets to date across the project of which we've drilled on only 9 of them and 5 of them make up our current resource at Enchi.

8:26 So tremendous growth potential on our project as well and then importantly you know about 40,000 meters from our recently drilled 92,000 meters was not included in any of this resource update. So these are green field areas. These are some of the deeper targets that maybe only have 1 or 2 or 3 holes into them so don't have enough drill density to be included in our resource today but obviously they give us the opportunity to follow up and look at growing those areas over time. Maybe I'll just take you into our project and just kind of highlight a couple of things and how they tie into our recent resource update in March of this year. So 216 square kilometers in size, so a very large land package.

9:29 When we look at the airborne geophysics on the property. What we're looking at here is you've got the main Bibiani shear, which runs to the west of us. And then where you see the mineralization is the second and third order splays coming through our project.

9:48 We've got about 100km of shearing going through our project. So again that's another way to look at the district scale exploration opportunity that we've got at our Enchi project. When we look at the deposits themselves, again, we've got 5 resource areas. Sium's our largest, Boing's our second, Niamh, Kwachi Kroom, and then Tokasea, our most recent deposit area. What the PEA contemplates is a heap leach pad centrally located, which obviously is very easy to access from all of these different pits. Importantly, though, All of these deposits remain open along strike and that's something that we obviously need to go and do follow up drilling, but ultimately we see those as low risk ounces to grow the overall size of the resource over time.

10:46 If we look at Boeing, for example, this is our second largest deposit. It sits at about 600,000 ounces. The average vertical depth of the pits on our property today only average and that constrain our current resource are only down to about 80 meters. So again, one of the big opportunities is for us to continue to drill deeper and look for those ounces that sit below the pits. Also, again, these deposits remain open along strike. So systematically stepping out and continuing to chase these structures from north to south. To put that in perspective, Boeing today, the pits sit within an area of about 5 kilometers on a structure or anomaly that we've identified of about 15 kilometers. So continuing to drill a long strike is one of the things that we're obviously excited about and see as low risk ounces to add to our resource over time.

11:57 We're now looking at Sium which is our largest deposit. So these pits here obviously constrain the ounces at CU. Again, they remain open along strike. So continuing to chase those ounces by systematically stepping out. Over here, we've got Tokasea, which is our newest deposit. Again, we need to continue to step out and drill a long strike. And interestingly here, Tokasea looks like it's colliding with our CUM deposit and this specific area here at Checkerboard Hill is one of our highest grade areas which ultimately coincides with where that Tokasea structure is coming in. So lots of exploration upside for us to go after and that's something that we'll build on with the updated resource that we put out earlier this year.

13:00 The other thing I'll highlight is some of the higher grade potential on our project. I outlined the heap leachable material that we've got using a, our PEA used a roughly 0.2 gram per ton cutoff. If I were to take that material off here at CEUM, the less than 0.5 gram per ton material, this really highlights a lot of the, you know, plus a half gram material and plus 1 gram material in red there within that block model. What's interesting about that is that we've got a lot of ounces that sit above that half gram cutoff.

13:46 Our resource was ultimately driven by roughly 0.2 gram per ton cutoff so that's the 740,000 ounces and 970,000 ounces of inferred. If we were to take that as I was showing you in the block model there to roughly a 0.5 gram per ton cutoff we're now sitting at half a million ounces at just under 1 gram per ton within the indicated category within the inferred category again at a half gram cutoff, we're sitting at roughly 580,000 ounces plus an additional 135,000 ounces

14:30 within the underground material. So we're sitting at about 1.2 million ounces of just over 1 gram per ton using that 0.5 gram per ton cutoff. So there is the opportunity in a lower Gold price environment, let's say 1450 or 1550, for us to continue to have a very economic project. The gold price that was used for this resource update was 1650. And again, you know, we see that as quite conservative, but obviously that drives very economic ounces for us. What we did outline within the 2021 PEA and what we're doing in our updated PEA is highlighting a heap leach project and what's important obviously for a heap leach project is that you have lots of oxide and transitional ounces.

15:29 So what we're looking at here is the different classes of resource that we've got on our project. So again, we've got over a million ounces of heap leachable material, so oxide and transitional material. We've got very large oxidized areas on our project, which is ultimately one of the real advantages that we've got. Typically, the oxidized material sits anywhere between 40 and 50 meters and in some cases goes as thick as 120 meters. So this is one of the key attributes that really helps with a heap leach project.

16:20 As part of the update that we put out, we did put out our first ever underground resource. So roughly 135,000 ounces of underground resource. This came from 3 different areas,

16:36 Sioum, Kwachi Kroom, and our Niam deposit. At 135,000 ounces, it's not a underground mine today, but it's a proof of concept for us and something that we see as very important in terms of highlighting the longevity of the project. To illustrate that, what we're looking at here is a long section of our ENCHI project. What we've done is we've superimposed

17:07 the depth of the oxide and transitional zones. So the average vertical depth again of the pits that sit on our project or constrain our current resource is about 80 meters. So really that kind of oxide transitional zones. We've then started to drill a little bit deeper below some of that material and getting into the fresh rock. And we've had some really good higher grade results from those areas. When we then compare that to the Toronto mine, which sits 50 kilometers to the North of us and has a historical endowment of over 5 and a half million ounces or if we were to look at a long section of Newmont's Ahatho project which has a 20 million ounce endowment

17:58 and we superimpose the depth of the oxide transitional zone, you start to really see a number of these deposits grow in size and increase in grade as you start to get deeper. To put that in perspective, at Tirano, they're currently mining at roughly 800 meters below surface, 1.5 to 2 gram material. So again, we've really just scratched the surface with the current resource that we have, which is constrained within an 80 meter area.

18:38 With that, maybe I'll hand it over to Greg to get into a little bit more detail on some of the higher grade that we've discovered below our current resource areas. All right, thanks Luke. Yeah, as Luke mentioned, there are 3 areas that make up the current 136,000

19:01 higher grade ounces. About half of those are located here on the depth extensions to the NIAM deposit. Like our other deposits, the main part of the deposit that we've studied now in the oxide and the transition is pit constrained. What we'll look at now are some of these depth extensions, these chutes that have been developed, and again, some of which we haven't actually started to drill yet, but which we continue to see expanding to depth. So taking a step back, again, Lucas has shown this, the larger deposits at Boyne and Seaham, where we're looking at now is here at the Niamh deposit. It's our third largest deposit that make up the resource, but the one where we've done the most amount of deeper drilling. And I think that's something to keep in mind is that when I'm talking about this deeper drilling, Luke's mentioned several times the sort of 80 meter average depth of the pits.

20:04 That highlighted here, the gray areas are the limits to the pits. The blocks that we're looking at here are the block model. So up to half a gram in blue, up to a gram in yellow and greater than 1 gram per ton in red. And again, this is a structurally controlled zone. So you see in this case, about a 3 kilometre length to the resource.

20:28 And as we focus in on some of these higher grade areas, we can see 2 main things. One is that they do start at surface. So we've got higher grade material at surface. So this is not something that's a big change so much as it's us following this higher grade material right from surface to depth. And all of these block images here have all of the drill holes that we've drilled to date. So also important to keep in mind that when we sort of

20:58 look at these areas where we're not projecting grade at this point, largely it's because we haven't drilled any holes in there. Very significantly, you look at the drilling that has been completed to depth and all of these holes are intersecting economic grades and widths of mineralization. So here you know 6.25

21:23 over 6, 3.5 over 9, 7.4 over 7, 3.2 over 9, this being associated with this southernmost of the 2 main chutes that we've now followed to depth. And again, for depth for us is, you know, if this is about a 50-meter depth here, this is about a little bit, about 100 meters here. So really, we're defining these resources anywhere from 100 to as deep as 250 meters below surface, but very close to the projected infrastructure for

21:58 the open pits. Again if you look at the second area here that we've done some drilling to depth, looking at the grades and the widths again, almost 5 grams over 8, 2 grams over 17, 5.4 over 9, almost 7 over 4, 5.7 over 8, almost 6 over 7. And these are all of the drill holes that we've drilled into that area. We did release some additional results earlier in the year. In particular, this hole here, hole 63 at Niamh. The significance here being that this is actually below the resource area here, so we've extended the zone to depth here.

22:44 And again, I mentioned that there's no deeper drilling in these areas yet. This is the high-grade chute that we're following.

22:53 And we do believe we see a third one here in the north. And all of these are open to depth. And as Luke highlighted in that sort of Toronto model, that's what you would expect from these structurally controlled deposits is they do tend to continue quite significantly to depth. So you really expect these zones to continue to depth. And that's sort of what happened at Toronto is again a whole series of relatively shallow pits taking out the oxide and transition material primarily and then after that focusing on some of these higher grade zones, 3.2, 5.6 gram per ton, 3.3 over 11, and almost 7 grams over 4 meters. So real good potential to continue to follow this to depth. And again, the advantage being that for us at depth is still less than, say, 250 to 300 meters vertically below surface.

23:53 We've also talked about the fact that we've done a lot of metallurgical test work. This has been a bit of a focus for us as we've defined these oxides and transition zones. Certainly, that's been the focus on a lot of the test work that we've done. We've done now more than 360 tests of which 340 of which have been done over the last couple of years. So very significant program advancing the understanding of the metallurgy and we're very pleased and we put out a series of news releases, 6, 7 news releases that included

24:31 over the last couple of years, metallurgical results and projecting really good recoveries here, ultimately in the sort of plus 90 to 95 range. And we've again, basically we've got 3 areas. We've got the bottle rolls and column tests that we've done on the oxide and transition material. We've started doing testing on the sulfide mineralization primarily from the NIAM area. So that hole that we were just looking at, hole 63, would be included in these results here, composite samples created from those drill holes. So again, giving us anywhere from 83 to 98%

25:16 recoveries, averaging about 92 in the sulfide material. We've got ongoing work on some of our other deposits. We've got sulfide samples from Cium where we're doing some additional work. Now, again, the oxide and transition material, the importance there is that we've got these column tests, 60 to 90 day column tests. These are basically reasonable facsimiles of what you expect in the heap leach scenario. You've got really good recoveries, quick recoveries in the first, say 20 to 30 days, excellent recoveries beyond that, and then a little bit slower at the end, as you would expect as you've recovered the majority of the gold. And then most recently, we've announced results from 2 large 15-ton

26:11 bulk sample tests. Here's the material here that we collected at our 2 largest deposits. So that includes a 15-ton sample from Boyne and a 15-ton sample from Siyum. Again, similar to what we saw in The column tests, excellent recoveries here. In terms of these tests, after 60 days, we're looking at 91.9% recovery. That includes 93.5 from the sample from Sium, 90.3 from the sample from Boeing. So good, consistent recoveries from the 2 samples. And then similarly to the column tests, and again, that's good to see that this sort of larger scale, even closer to reality kind of test that we have here with the bulk sample gives us the same sort of curves where we've got really fast recoveries in the sort of 20 to 25 day range, good recoveries all the way up to 40 days and that you're already up to put a 90% there. And then what you would expect is a little bit more recovery, but flatter curves as you again, essentially gotten the majority of the Gold out of the material.

27:30 Along with the recoveries, we've got good low consumption rates. Again, this is in line with what we're seeing with all of the column tests that we've done, and that really validates that column work. So, You know, we've got obviously more columns. The columns are on different geographic areas of the largest deposits. So it's good to be able to rely on those columns and again, advance that work to the point of pilot heap testing with the larger 15 ton samples. So in terms of the near term catalysts, I'll pass it back to Luke and basically this updated resource, all of this metallurgical work will be what we'll incorporate into the updated PEA that's currently underway.

28:23 Yeah, thanks a lot, Greg. So in terms of the updated PEA that we've just kicked off, As I've highlighted, it's going to incorporate a larger resource, which we put out in March of this year, as well as we've significantly de-risked the ounces within it by moving 740,000 ounces into the indicated category, as well as all of that MET test work that Greg's just talked to you about that's been completed over the last couple of years. Again, that de-risks the project that's gonna be presented within that PEA, as well as we're doing environmental social baseline studies, we're doing some hydrological work. So again, all of those things contribute to de-risking the PEA that we're going to put out in H1 of next year.

29:21 If we look at the PEA that we put out in 2021 that fundamentally underpins the value of the company, it presented very robust economics. So a very simple heap leach project at a 1650 gold price, which is the base case that we used within that PEA, which is also the gold price that we used within our updated resource earlier this year, we have an after tax NPV of 212 million, after tax IRR of 54% and just over a 2 year payback. If we look at it now at an 1850 gold price, we're looking at an after tax NPV of 300 million, after tax IRR of 54 percent and under a 2 year payback. This is one of the reasons why we talk about there being a deep value within our company, and one of the things that attracted new institutional investors to our share register when we did that financing in June. At a 1850 gold price, we're trading at roughly 0.05 times the NPV of the project. So one of the motivations for us obviously updating the PEA, highlighting robust economics on the back of the updated

30:53 resource that we did is to get the company to re-rate from that less than 0.1 times NPV of the project to something higher than that. So that's the motivation for us. Obviously, the 2021 PEA outlined a very nice production profile, roughly 90, 92, 93,000 ounces over just over 10 year mine life. And one thing that's important to highlight is the strip ratio on our projects. What we always say is if companies are not advertising or highlighting in their presentation what their strip ratio is, you better dig through the technical report or ask management what it is. One of the things that really helps drive the economics of our project is the fact that we've the fact that we've got a very good strip ratio on the project.

31:56 In terms of near-term catalysts, We are, as we've talked about in some detail, in the process of updating our PEA to incorporate that larger resource. We think that will create a further fundamental underpinning of value for the company and lead to the stock re-rating as the market recognizes the opportunity. We are in the process of continuing to de-risk the project through additional metallurgical test work. We've done 20 column tests today, 2 bulk samples. We've done hundreds of bottle roll tests, but one of the crucial elements to pushing a project forward is to continuously do network across it. So that's something we're very active on. We are in the process of completing an environmental and social baseline study. This is something that we will incorporate into our PEA as well, which again is another de-risking event for the company.

33:11 So we're excited about everything that we accomplished in 2023. Yes, it was a difficult market for the for the exploration sector. But one of the nice things about Nucor is we've got a buildable project today that in a tough environment for the gold sector, we can continue to de-risk the project and create tremendous shareholder value for relatively low cost to the company. Everything that we've talked about today in terms of the work plans we've got, we are funded for all of that with the $5 million that we've got in the bank. So we've got runway for 12 to 18 months, a number of kind of catalysts on the horizon. And today I think is a great time to be looking at Nucor given we have sold off not based on the fundamentals of the company but because of tax loss selling in my opinion we're trading at roughly $8 per ounce in the ground. These are ounces that have been de-risked through the economic study that we put out. These are pit constrained ounces as well as obviously we're trading at less than 0.1 times the NPV of the project.

34:27 With that I think we'll take any questions that people have. Thank you both, Luke and Greg, for the detailed presentation. And for those of you in attendance, there is a little text box chat icon on the bottom right. In case you didn't see that, you can pop that open and ask questions. So I'll kick things off by asking Luke a question around the oxidization depth. I know we've commented on this. We do have some 360s that potentially help highlight this as well, but can you go into a bit more detail on how deep the oxidization typically is and at what point do the sulfides start? Yeah, thanks, thanks Mal and thanks for Martin who's asked that question.

35:16 So In terms of the oxidization, it's typically and probably averages around 40m to 50m. This includes both oxide and transitional material. The transitional material on our project is very well oxidized. And one thing that's important to mention, when you look at the net work and what Greg was talking about in terms of the net work, they are blends of anywhere from 50-50 oxide transitional material, 40-60, 60-40. So the transitional material on our project leaches very well and that's been proven out with all of the test work that we've done so so 40 to 50 meters is the average depth and they go anywhere to up to 120 meters. What I'll maybe do to illustrate that, because it is an important element to our project, given you don't see a lot of projects with this amount of heap leachable material. So what we're looking at here is a 360 of our Enchi project and the different deposits that we've got.

36:38 Maybe I'll take us to Boeing and just illustrate what I'm talking about here. So what we've got is we've got rolling hills throughout our project, and typically the mineralization sits along these hills. So if we're looking here, for example, If we go from the top of the hill all the way down to the bottom, you'll be looking at anywhere up to 120 meters of oxidized material. So from a mining perspective, you mine all of that. When you get down to the bottom of the hill, for example, you may pinch out at 20 metres of oxidized material.

37:27 So anywhere from, call it 20 to 120 metres, with an average of about 40 to 50 meters. And I'll just jump in there and add, and significantly, Luke was highlighting Boeing there. The 2 largest deposits at Boeing and Sium also happen to be the 2 areas where we've got the greatest depth of oxidation and that's what's allowed us to build a large oxide and transition resource in those 2 areas and there it would average closer to 70 to 80 meters vertically. Great, thank you both. So I have a few questions around the metallurgical test work so over to Greg.

38:13 Firstly, Considering the latest met results, would it make sense to use a lower cutoff grade? We've talked a bit about the cutoff grade. So currently around 0.2 and yes would be the one word answer. However, as you go a little bit lower with the cutoffs, then that also drives your average grade lower. So it's a real balance between getting all of the economical ounces that are based on the inputs that you put in there. And you balance that with maintaining an average grade that allows you to reach a certain production profile with a set amount of tons that you're mining and processing.

39:01 So we think that the sweet spot is still around 0.2. That gives us very economic ounces, keeps the average grade of the material coming out of the pits in that 0.6 gram per ton range, as Luke mentioned. Maybe as much as 2 times the global average for these type of heap leach operations. We think that's where the economics drives best and gives us probably that little bit of a cushion that you always like to see. If you really drive that cut-off grade too low and you lower the average grade, then your margins start to get squeezed and obviously no project wants that. So we like the average grade where it is at about 0.6 grams per tonne and we like the 0.2 cut-off.

39:51 Yeah, and maybe another way just to kind of elaborate on Greg's kind of margin point, if you look at again, the 2021 PEA, it outlined an all-in sustaining cost of around 10.50 to 11.50. I think it was 10.66 was the exact all in sustaining cost within that. So again, really good margins by, you know, kind of focusing in on that, on that point to roughly 0.2 grand per ton cutoff or greater. Sticking with MET test work, Greg, I think it might be helpful if you could elaborate on the differences between bottle roll tests, column test work, bulk scale tests, and what advantages do each provide with our knowledge base on the MET?

40:44 Sure. Basically, the 3 that you've mentioned are are sort of an advancement in the the size of the of the sample that you're using and and an advancement in terms of its its you know closeness to to what you the conditions that you actually expect in an operating heap leach operation. So the bottle rolls are, they're just that. You put the material in a bottle and you roll it around for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. You've got the cyanide in there. So really what they are, are tests of whether or not direct cyanidation is going to work on this material. So they're faster and quicker than the other 2 sets of tests, So that's their advantages.

41:32 Their disadvantage is that they're, you know, they deal with smaller sample sizes. So half a kilo to 1 kilo, typically, and they're not a really good, reasonable facsimile for heap leach operation, because you've got this material that's rolling around. But again, what it does tell you is it tells you that the material under say ideal conditions can you can you can get the gold into solution using cyanide. So once you've made yourself comfortable that you can do that, you move on to the column test which is where you're putting larger samples anywhere from 40 to 60 kilograms of material in these vertical columns. You're then leaching it for a longer time, anywhere from 30 days up to 90 days.

42:23 And this is much more similar to what you would expect out of an actual heap leach operation. So again, the benefits there, your larger samples, it's more representative of the actual process that we ultimately are proposing here. The downside, I guess, is that it takes longer, but Obviously, as we've seen on these curves, we've got the really quick recoveries for the first 20 to 30 days, significant recoveries after that for another 20 plus days. And then as you would expect, as most of the Gold has been brought into solution, slower recoveries on the end. And then the pilot heap, of course, is just that. It's a series of tests. The 2 tests that we've completed on each of our 2 largest deposits, it's closer still to what the actual conditions are that you would expect in an operating heap leach mine. So again, the samples are larger, they're more representative of what you would expect when you're mining this material, because basically that's what we did. We just dug this material out of a trench that had been identified with a with a backhoe and and dumped it on these pads and again put solution on them for 60 days and you see the recovery curves there where you know after the first 20 days you're already to plus 80% After the first 40 to plus 90%

43:54 and then ultimately again 92% after the 60 days. So yeah, it's all about getting bigger and I guess better samples. It's all about getting a sample system that's as close as possible to the actual operating conditions we expect for the heap leach mine. Great, thanks Greg. And on the bulk heap leach test work, so was the material crushed or run of mine type material? So the only crushing that was done, I would say that we could say it was run of mine. The only crushing that was done was there was, as we were digging this, some larger pieces of quartz vein material that is associated with this mineralization, and by larger than 15 centimeters. And that was actually crushed manually by hand. So very little crushing there. And it's one of the things that we're studying now is the balance between, we actually don't want to crush this material too much. Those larger trunks of quartz assist with the percolation and the solutions getting to all of the material in these sort of heaps. So in actuality, which is a good thing, we want to crush this material as little as possible.

45:20 Thanks, over to Luke. If you don't mind pulling up the property map, there is a question around who controls the donut hole in the project to the north of Niamh? Yeah, so just right here is where I assume you're referring to. We actually at one point controlled that and ultimately in Ghana, when you first start working on a project over a number of years, you've got to shed off about 50% of the acreage. So part of the shedding off, There's actually a local community in this area. So we decided to actually shed that off.

46:08 We understand it's a private group who currently controls that area and that there's a small, small community mining operation that's taking place there. So throughout Ghana, you know, it is Africa's largest gold producer, produces about 5 million ounces per year, About a million and a half ounces is actually produced by the small scale and mid-scale, mid-size producers who are primarily private companies. A number of them are actually community mining operations. And within this area, there's a small underground community mine that's currently operating there.

46:59 A high-grade vein below surface, which again speaks to some of the high-grade opportunity on our project. Yeah, I'll follow that up, Luke, just quickly. And it obviously doesn't highlight really well on this satellite image, but a large part of that is alluvial as well. There's quite a large flat area adjacent to the town. And yeah, again, as Luke mentioned, we had controlled that area for a number of years. So when I was there running the exploration from 2010 through 2016, and we did a lot of work in there. They generated some anomalies, but they all tended to be, or a lot of them associated with these alluvial areas. We did a bunch of trenching and some very limited drilling and didn't generate any results that we weren't comfortable giving that back as part of the 50% reduction.

48:01 Thank you both. Moving on to catalysts coming up in the next 6-months or so, how much drilling is planned between now and the scheduled PEA release? We don't have any current drilling planned. We are doing some condemnation drilling on areas where we've identified that we want to potentially put the heap leach pad. Doing that. We're doing a bunch of soil sampling trench work on the project, but really the big push for us is focusing in on getting that PEA completed, which we'll look to get out in the first half of next year. And then on the back of that, we'll assess whether it makes more sense to focus in on infill drilling.

48:58 Obviously, today we sit at roughly 740,000oz of indicated. To take this to a PFS, we'd probably want to get that to roughly 1.1 to 1.2 million ounces of indicated. So Greg and his team are kind of looking at what will be required from an infilling perspective. And then from a pure exploration perspective, we're obviously continuing to look at the results that we've had and identify where we see the best opportunity to create value with drilling. So that's kind of the focus for us at the moment. I think that leads in nicely to a bigger question around, can you talk a little bit about the district scale potential of the property?

49:53 Do you want to take that one on Greg or you want me to? No, yeah, sure I can jump in there. Mal, I'm not sure. Yeah, so there's the geophysics there And as Luke mentioned, that's the primary control as these splays come off the Bibiani shear zone. And this is exactly the same sort of structural setting with the Chirano and Bibiani to the north. So it's all of these splays coming off of it there. There isn't any gold associated with the main structure itself It was just too darn big and the structures kept flowing But where we see these zones and and Boyne is probably the best example, you know, our deposits, it's right along these conductors, these are electromagnetic conductors that we're seeing here.

50:43 And what we combine this with in terms of our exploration is the soil anomalies and the soil sampling. We've completed soil sampling over the entire project in terms of some of the areas where we've been focusing our trenching efforts recently. These are some of the areas. We've got Sioum South here as well, where we've done a large trenching program and very limited drilling, again, adjacent to our actual Sioum deposit, but it's one of the largest anomalies we have in Kwanta here as well. Again, Tokaseya, we just started sort of scratching the surface with our drilling there. And then the Niam, Kwachi Kroom structure, again, very much open to the south there. So we've got a number of areas, as Luke mentioned, we've identified 25 individual targets.

51:43 A number of those we have trenched. A number of those We've put individual or limited amounts of drilling into. I'll highlight here, Cojina Hill, where we've released in the last couple of years some very positive results. Arati all the way up to the north as well. I mentioned Sioum South where we put a dozen holes into an area that's 6 and a half kilometers by 3 kilometers, so lots of room to expand. And then the Niamh-Kwachi Kroom corridor here as well, which is real strong, both in terms of its geophysical signature and the geochemical anomalies that are open there. So yeah, we've got a number of these targets. We've been doing some trenching work, again, some infill soils here. There's one of the new discoveries that we've kind of made over the last year and a half is here at Ajikrum, where we've done some fill-in soil work and a bunch of trenches there and generated anywhere from 10 to up to 50 metres at sort of half a gram in the trenches.

52:49 So no drilling there and it had never been trenched previously, so that's kind of one of the highlights of the actual sort of expansion and regional potential work that we've done over the last year and a half. And I'm gonna just add to that. I mean, it's obviously great that we've got all of these targets across our property, 25 targets identified to dates. But the nice thing is we've got exploration opportunity from infill to easy step outs along strike. As I mentioned, at all of our deposits, we can continue to systematically step out. Boeing, you know, we've only drilled and our resource sits within a 5km area on a 15km anomaly that we've identified.

53:40 We've, for the first time, put out an underground resource, which we talked about a little bit, but that's probably around 25 holes that we've kind of drilled deeper, which for us deeper is down to 200 to 300 meters. So those are all in our view lower risk opportunities for us to continue to meaningfully grow the resource. So yes, we've got the green field opportunities and Greg just talked about those in terms of early stage trench work, but we've got very de-risked targets on our property that can reward us with a tremendous amount of ounces as well. So when you look at Nucor, recognize that you've got all exploration opportunities within the company from again, infield drilling, easy step outs, following up on high grade that we've identified at depth, as well as obviously virgin greenfield targets that are earlier stage.

54:52 Thank you both. I think that covered the exploration potential, the district scale exploration potential on Enchi. And Luke, so with that, with that updated PE that's coming out next year, will that only cover the economics of an initial open pit heap leach? Yeah, at this stage, our view is, let's say 100,000 ounces over a 10-year mine life for US$100M for an after-tax NPV of US$300M. That for Nucor is a very buildable project that's got very robust economics. If we were to paint the blue sky production opportunity, we would look to put the 100,000 ounces into production with the cash flow from that, aggressively drill out some of the fresh rock, the sulfides.

55:46 As those ounces get proved up and we obviously strip all the oxide transitional material, what we would look at doing is ultimately putting a CIL plant in, using the cash flow from that. And at that stage, you could, let's say, go from 100 to 200,000 ounces of production. So that's the opportunity is create a self-funded district scale exploration company who currently has primarily oxide transitional material, but as those sulfides grow, then you would put a CIL plant down the road. Thanks, Luke. Can you elaborate on that? So our focus currently is on that updated PEA, but what is the strategy for New Core Gold post PEA completion?

56:40 So post PEA, we'll obviously look at the economics of the project. We'll talk about that with our major shareholders who are very keen to see us continue to push this project forward. And we'll make a decision, okay, does it make sense for us to take this to an advanced stage PFS? One of the important things to mention is that a lot of the work that we are doing and that we've already done, I mean, those results that Greg has taken you through from a metallurgical perspective are already pushing a PFS or FS stage. You know, that level of work is not required for a PEA.

57:27 But as, you know, as a management team and a company who's looking at building this project, we want to have 100% confidence in the work that we're doing. So we're going above and beyond within the PEA on a lot of the work that we're doing. Same thing with the environmental social baseline study, the hydrological drilling, the condemnation drilling, all of that stuff isn't necessarily required for a PEA. So we'll make the decision as to whether we go to a PFS. The key thing that's required and the capital intensive piece that's required for a PFS is the infill drilling. So we'll look at whether it makes more sense to do some infill drilling, to be able to complete a PFS, or whether we focus on continuing to grow the resource and focus on drilling or whether we do both. So Those are the decisions that we'll make on the back of the PEA.

58:34 And obviously, you know, at that stage, we'll see what the market is doing as well. But the key thing for us today is we are fully funded for the next 12 to 18 months and all of the work that we've outlined over the last hour on this call. Thanks Luke. A couple additional questions before we wrap things up. Are you considering low-grade stockpiles for the material below the 0.2 gram per ton cutoff? I'll jump in there, Luke, just to say that again, yes would be the one word answer. However, the challenge there certainly is that, you know, at those sorts of average grades, you really can't move this stuff too much. So there will be lower grade stockpiles that will be created and the economic viability of those will be evaluated when time comes to move them a second time. So obviously if we're in a good positive gold price environment then having that material on surface is is going to be a benefit but you know under other gold price or cost situations, then maybe it's going to stay right where it is. But keep in mind that, again, at the point to cut off, that's where we have the global amount of 1.7 million ounces. So we do have quite a lot of ounces to work with. And as

1:00:04 we've talked a couple of times, we've got expansion potential both in terms of oxides and then obviously longer term with the sulfides. But yeah, it really gets down to the economics. And I guess I'd say you'd have to expect to see a pretty healthy gold price before you want to move 0.1 gram material a second time. Thanks Greg. And then Greg, are there any artisanal miners active on your property? So yeah, generally speaking, you know, again, we've been there for 13 years now. So we've been able to manage the situation. They're certainly very active all over Ghana. This image here is of our Sioum area. Luke's mentioned the ridge, and this is a really good example, the ridge that's on the lower right-hand side of this image. That's where our resource sits, is on this ridge. That's actually the checkerboard hill area there that Lucas mentioned.

1:01:08 The town of Sium is off to the right-hand side. And then where it's labeled private mine there, that's actually a very small-scale but historic underground operation that's been active there since the early part of the 20th century. So currently not overly active, but and you can see in some of the lower lying areas there as well, some small-scale alluvial operations. So yes, there is some activity, but the very significant factor is that none of it occurs right on top of our resources. So it's certainly largely concentrated on the actual alluvials in the creeks and the drainages.

1:01:54 But this is one example of a very historic underground operation that's been developed on several levels down to probably 180 or 200 meters below surface, but again, at a very, very small scale over the last 150 years. Thanks, Greg. So Luke, as we wrap things up, any parting words, any last, you know, what are you excited about for the coming year? I mean, I'm extremely excited about the PEA that we're currently working on. We've obviously run the numbers internally and hence the reason we're investing in the update is that we see a very robust project. I mean, for investors looking at Nucor today, I mean, we got hit by tax loss selling, we're trading at $8 per ounce in the ground, less than 0.1 times the NPV of the project. So there's deep value within the project, as well as obviously that big exploration upside.

1:02:58 But we're not beholden to exploration only. We've got a very robust project that we're going to take to a construction decision with the ability to at any point pull the lever to ultimately aggressively explore at our existing resource areas, at greenfield areas, at depth and systematically along strike from all of our deposits. So all of those things give a huge amount of optionality for us as a management team as well as us as 20% owners of the business. So those are the things that I'm extremely excited about. And obviously Ghana is a tier 1 jurisdiction for us to be operating in. It's got 3 of the top 10 largest gold producers on the planet. Historically, 200 million ounces of gold have been discovered in Ghana. We've got a number of multi-million ounce deposits along the Sefui-Bibiani belt from us and we've still just scratched the surface in terms of the exploration that we've done on our project. So those are the things that I'm extremely excited about and I'm very fortunate to have a great team to work with to ultimately create the value within Nuchor. So, I mean, with that, I'd encourage anyone to go and visit our website.

1:04:27 We're also very active on social media. So whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook, or I guess XNOW, you know, I'd encourage you to follow us on those different platforms. A number of our existing shareholders have found the content that we provide there very useful. Thank you both. And thank you everyone for joining us today and for the great questions. We are out of time. As we've mentioned, please do reach out, follow us on social. We post a lot of great content. And more recently, Greg was at site with our VP projects, Brandon Fraser. So we do have some more content coming on that. And with that, we look forward to continuing to update you all with our developments going into next year. And we wish everyone a very happy holiday season. Thank you.

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